A self healing network (SHN) distributed restoration algorithm (DRA), is described by W. D. Grover in U.S. Pat. No. 4,956,835, which teaches the restoration of a disrupted traffic due to a failed link. There are, however, no teachings or suggestions on checking the validity of the alternate route after the restoration. In other words, the '835 invention assumes that once an alternate route is found to replace the failed link separating the sender and chooser nodes in the telecommunications network, the communications path of which the failed link is a portion is as good as new. That oftentimes may not be case, as an alternate route may end up utilizing a great number of spare circuits that were not used in the earlier communications path to carry the same traffic which was disrupted due to the failed link.
A need therefore exists for verifying the integrity of a restored communications path which had been disrupted due to the failure of a portion thereof.